


I can try to be him, for you

by Laroyena



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Crack, Domestic Fluff, Feels, Identity Issues, M/M, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, So does Steve, basically Bucky's constant alter switching, ridiculous boys, though it's subtle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 13:11:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7464633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laroyena/pseuds/Laroyena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Bucky Barnes was so damn glad that screw had been loose.</i>
</p>
<p>Semi-crackish AU where Bucky killed Zemo before he finished saying the code words. Things go down a lot differently after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I can try to be him, for you

**Author's Note:**

> I only watched Captain America: Civil War once, and I'm sure I got a LOT of plot details and characterizations mixed up/wrong. Apologies in advance!
> 
> This was written as kind of a crack fic, but as it deals with Bucky, it is by default also filled with feels. 
> 
> As for the background details, Peggy's a kickass lady but she and Steve's relationship doesn't really make it in the story. Possibly doesn't exist in this universe?? Also convenient plot shuffling where Bucky knows what Zemo's looking for. Urggghg. Stucky is one of my core OTPs and I haven't written them at all since I know I'll get the details wrong OTL;;; so forgive me for this first attempt everyone.

Things would have gone a lot differently if a factory inspector hadn’t called in sick that day.

If she hadn’t, she would have surely caught the two workers shirking in the back of the manufacturing plant. One of them might have found a slightly faulty screw when they returned to the line-up. Correct enough to still fit into its assigned place, but lopsided enough to be a tiny bit loose. They would have grumbled and bitched and dragged their feet, but the screw would have been replaced and the containment box, once assembled, would be once again impenetrable.

(For the normal human man, of course.)

Bucky Barnes was so damn glad that screw had been loose.

When that ‘psychiatrist’ had begun reciting his code words— _no, no, no, not again_ —he’d searched immediately for a way to escape the stupid box. Sheer force would do the trick eventually given his metal arm, but he didn’t have time. _He didn’t have time_.

And then he found the faulty screw, twisted his hand just so, and ripped his way out of the case just as the imposter doctor’s lips close around “one.”

A second later, the doctor’s head was no longer attached to his body.

That’s how Steve and Sam and a shit ton of government soldiers found him, cross-legged beside the headless corpse and ripping that goddamn red book to shreds.

 

\--

 

They locked him into a room for six hours.

After Bucky finished counting the number of tiles on the left wall—two-thousand forty-six—the door slammed open and Steve Rogers stormed right in.

“C’mon, Buck,” he said, voice tight in the _Follow my lead_ tone he liked to use when he was up to no good. Enough sticky buns went missing from the shops ‘cause of that voice, because Bucky couldn’t really ever say no and the baker was always sneering at them anyway. Steve, soft heart he was, would always give a few to the boys in the alley by the church, but there’d be more than enough left over to fill their bellies.

Bucky wasn’t sure why he’d remember useless memories like that but not his own birthday. His mind was too fucked up to be trusted, obviously. So when Steve used _that voice_ , Bucky just rolled onto his feet and trudged after him. The man said in a quieter tone, “We’re taking you back to Avengers tower.”

“They’re not just _letting me go_ ,” Buck said blankly. He could see the scared looks of all the soldiers they passed, the shudders as he intentionally brushed his metal arm against them just to be a little shit. Steve glared at him for scaring the normies and corralled him towards a landing bay, where Tony Stark was waiting tight-lipped near a jet plane.

“You better know what you’re doing,” the man snarled, jabbing a finger at Steve. “That is a _national security risk—_ “

“He’s my _friend_ , Tony,” Steve shot back. “And he didn’t bomb the Summit—you saw the evidence just like everyone else. He was _framed_ , and he’s been through enough shit today—”

“You still broke, like, _a million laws_ —”

“—and I even signed those stupid Accords, so can we go? I don’t want to fight, Tony.” Steve let out an irritated huff, like a wound up horse. “I really don’t.”

Stark glared at him but snapped on thousand-dollar sunglasses without a word. Steve gestured Bucky to take a seat inside the plane, and Bucky, having nothing else to do, did.

Inside were several of the other Avengers: Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov, a Sokovian woman the news had identified at Wanda Maximoff, and a strange man with red skin. Bucky looked at each of them in turn—categorizing them from head-to-toe, assessing their threat level, if they were going to turn on Steve if it came down to it—before settling into the seat besides Steve with his arms crossed.

The silence was deafening.

Finally, after Stark had taken the plane into the air and Natasha was clearly winning their staring contest, Bucky forfeited and settled back in his chair.

“I just wanted plums,” he said in a surly tone, and Steve turned to give him an incredulous look.

He opened his mouth. He closed it. “You hate plums.”

“I didn’t say they were for _me_ ,” Bucky glared. “I have neighbors. Old woman next door, no kids. Likes plums."

“They are good for the human digestive tract,” the red-skinned man mused, and Wilson turned his face into his hand to hide his laughter. “What?

“I’ll get you plums when we get to the tower,” Steve promised. “I mean, if you want to stay at the tower? You don’t have to, but I thought with your apartment ruined…”

“…my security deposit’s shot,” Bucky said like he was going on about the weather. “So yeah, I might as well.”

“ _Plums_ ,” Wilson said, straight-faced, and ducked when Bucky threw a tumbler at him in response.

 

\--

 

The tower was all swanky tech and sparkly glass, the kind of thing Howard would’ve salivated over if he’d still been alive and kicking.

He wasn’t. Bucky would know.

Steve noticed his hand twitching as they rode the lift up to Steve’s room. The other Avengers had piled into the communal area, popping open beer bottles and arguing lowly when they thought he wasn’t in earshot. Something about these ‘Sokovia Accords’ Steve had reluctantly signed, if only to make sure the government didn’t put Bucky under ice for another two decades.

“So,” Steve said conversationally, like he wasn’t awkwardly holding back a million questions like _Where have you been_ and _Why didn’t you find me_ and _Do you remember? Do you remember? Do you_ remember.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Bucky twitched again.

Steve blinked. “Like what?”

“Like I’m a sticky bun you want to steal,” he told him, and Steve rewarded him with a downright flabbergasted look. “I won’t be stolen. Hell, I’ve already fallen into the dirt, why would you want to steal me.”

“Are—are you talking about that time we stole Mrs. Grey’s sticky buns?” Steve offered tentatively, because he was a smart enough cookie not to ask dumb questions. “’Cause she called me a waste of space and money with my lungs and you were mad?”

“Don’t turn this around on me, punk,” Bucky stepped out of the lift when they arrived. “We both know it was _your_ idea.”

“It was not!”

“You had the same look and tone, of course it was your idea.” Bucky kicked Steve's front door open and ignored Steve’s indignant squawk. “But yeah, bad deal pal. You can’t even eat me. I’ll give you indigestion.”

“I don’t understand your metaphors,” Steve whined, but looked a little perkier like Bucky’s word-vomit was a promising indication of his mental state. Which would have been stupid, but Bucky supposed Steve could have found him drooling unresponsively on the floor instead.

“Shower?” he asked when Steve just kept _looking_ at him, rather than doing the courteous thing and showing his guest around. Well. Bucky wasn’t sure if he was actually a guest. Prisoner maybe. A prisoner guest.

“What? Oh. Oh! Sorry, uh, come with me,” Steve scrambled around the couches and seemed to lead them through a dozen rooms before he showed Bucky the largest bathroom he’d ever seen. Bucky frowned at what looked like a miniature swimming pool in the middle.

“I said _shower_.”

“This is Tony’s idea of a bathroom,” Steve said apologetically, looking just as discomfited as Bucky was. “He was making fun of me, I think.”

“Don’t tell me _you_ shower here.”

“Oh no,” Steve looked taken aback. “No, I use the personal one in my—Buck!"

But Bucky was already walking back the way they came, looking for the saddest plainest room covered in unfinished sketches—and colored pencils on the floor, Christ, Bucky used to stub his toes on them when he tried sneaking back in their shared apartment after work—and finding it immediately. Steve kept sputtering after him, especially after he poked his head into the much smaller bathroom in the back of the room and began taking off his clothes.

“You can’t just,” Steve flailed his arms. “Bucky!”

“You weren’t shy before,” Bucky observed, shouldering off his ratty hoodie and pulling at his jeans. Steve’s lips thinned into a disapproving line, but he folded his arms and refused to bow out of Bucky’s unspoken challenge. Captain America wasn’t losing to _embarrassment_. “How do you turn on the hot water for this.”

“It’s not about being _shy_ , it’s about _context_ ,” Steve said testily. He shoved Bucky on the metal-arm so he could get to the shower. Bucky let the plates whir and settle just to spite him, and Steve’s glare could’ve burned a hole through his skull if it wasn’t made of ice. Cold, HYDRA-enforced ice.

Bucky twitched.

“Everything’s labeled and there’s towels in the closet,” Steve stepped back once he deemed the water safe for traumatized-super-soldier skin. By this point Bucky was completely naked and crowding him from behind, because acting like a punk always pissed Steve off.

Not that he liked pissing Steve off. It was just better than that sad, drowned-cat look Steve wore eighty percent of the time he’d looked at Bucky so far, which was. Unacceptable.

If Steve looked at him like that one more time, he was going to _stab him in the eye._

“You’re winding me up,” Steve said flatly when Bucky refused to budge from the shower door. This forced him to squeeze past Bucky in the most skin-on-skin way possible, his own cheeks flushing red. “Here I was worried about your jerk ass and the _first_ thing, the _first thing_ you do after hiding away for two years is stand buck-naked in my bathroom—no! Don’t you make a Bucky is Naked joke!”

“What did you mean by context,” Bucky called out instead, even after Steve stomped out of the bathroom muttering to himself.

“There is a _door_ ,” Steve shouted back at him. “There are so many rooms here, privacy isn’t a luxury.”

Bucky opened his mouth to say something like _What’s so important about privacy_ and _Can’t believe you’d say that with what we used to do back then_ , but then something about that last thought struck him dumb for a good, long minute.

Then, without another word, he stepped into the shower and shut the door.

(The shower door. Not the bathroom door, because this might be a ‘safe place’ but Bucky wasn’t the fucking Winter Soldier for nothing. This way he could still hear Steve shuffling around the bedroom picking up his mess; breathing and alive and currently unthreatened. Only a few seconds away if anything happened, which was more than enough time for Bucky to gut an attacker.

If he needed to.

Bucky picked up the shampoo and sniffed it. It reminded him of home.)

\--

Here’s another useless memory.

Bucky sometimes brought home nice-smelling soap bars the other guys had skimmed off the top of incoming shipments. If Steve knew they’d cost a week’s wages, he’d call it ridiculous.

“We could’ve had _cans_ of beans,” Steve would shake the soap bars at him. If he was real ticked he’d start coughing, and Bucky would have to either distract him with some other injustice or go fetch his cigarettes. But most of the time it was worth the sheer joy Stevie radiated when taking a bath. He’d use the soap reverently, generously. Forming nice big suds that he’d run over his skinny body and then into his hair, until he was one big puffball of sweet lavender beaming up at Bucky from the tub.

Their bath was too tiny for two men to share—even one as frail and small as Steve—so Bucky usually waited for Steve to wash first. Within eyesight, of course. He hadn’t left Steve alone since the time he’d fainted and would’ve drowned if Bucky hadn’t noticed a distinct lack of humming coming from the bathroom. Scared the bejeezus out of him and Mrs. Rogers both.

“Turn around, I’ll wash your back,” Bucky would sometimes say, reaching over the washbasin for a cloth. Steve would usually smack his hand away with an eyeroll and an _I’m not eight anymore, Buck, jeez_. But sometimes, if Steve was in a good mood and Bucky had been sweet enough that week, the smaller man would give him a wry smile and turn around.

He’d let Bucky smooth that nice-smelling soap down the line of his fragile back, up and over before his hands went below the water and settled on Steve’s hips instead.

“That ain’t my back, Buck,” Steve would tease, and Bucky. Bucky would sweep his arms under Steve’s knees and lift him out of the lukewarm water. He’d carry a laughing Steve, dripping wet and arms thrown around Bucky’s neck, to their shared bedroom where secondhand blankets and teasing and stolen kisses hid in plain sight.

Even if Bucky sometimes tripped over a pencil or two on the way there.

 

\--

 

(Steve’s bathroom smelled like lavender. By the time Bucky finished rinsing off what felt like years of grime off his face—untrue, he had perfectly good hygiene in his old flat, thank you very much—he smelled like lavender too.

It made him want to put a fist through the mirror.)

 

\--

 

Steve was shouting at someone when Bucky finally wandered out of the shower. Well, not exactly shouting. More of a soft-spoken steel-backed conversational tone, the kind that usually predated a fistfight that Steve needed rescuing from.

Not that Steve needed much rescuing these days.

“Then tell Pr—tell King T’Challa that we know as much as he does,” Steve was saying tersely outside his bedroom. Bucky shucked off the towel and let instinct guide him. Apparently his scrambled-egg brain was still good for something, given that he found Steve’s boxer drawer (bottom left), t-shirts (mid-right) and sweatpants (these were just hanging off the back of a chair, that _slob_ ) without any conscious thought. He shrugged them on and spent a moment marveling at how he could _fit_ in these.

“No. I haven’t asked him, you can’t just—Tony, he’s been through too much today, can we please talk about this tomorrow?”

He would've written his new body memory discoveries in his notebook, but that was lost somewhere in Romania. He wondered if he could steal one of Steve’s without him knowing.

“I. Fine. _Fine_. Thank you, Tony. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Something slammed onto a surface. Bucky guessed it was a cell phone to the coffee table.

He slunk into the living room where Steve was bowed over on the couch, looking for all the world like he’d been given the codes to a nuclear bomb and asked to detonate it. Bucky drank in the sight of him. He hadn’t really had the chance to take a good, long look at this New Steve, not after he’d fought his way out of whatever HYDRA had done to his head. Logically, he knew there were quite a few memories of New Steve squirreled away somewhere. Memories admiring the healthy look about him, the dual relief and disappointment that Steve no longer needed Bucky to watch over his every move.

Then again: scrambled-egg brain.

“Buck!” Steve jolted, like he hadn’t known Bucky was there. Bucky scowled at him; Steve’s concern over personal safety was abysmal as ever, of course. “You—um—I mean. Wait, is that my shirt—”

“Spit it out, Rogers,” Bucky drawled.

Steve shut his mouth. Took a deep breath. “Tony wants to talk to you tomorrow morning. With a few other people.”

“Interrogation,” Bucky nodded. “To be expected. Just so you know, I have above average pain tolerance and excellent regenerative abilities.”

“ _What_?” Steve gave him that sad drowned-cat look again. “No! No, they’re just going to talk to you. Try and figure out what the guy—Colonel Zemo—wanted, alright?”

Bucky blinked slowly.

He barely remembered anything that bastard had said. Just knew he’d been trying to use that blasted book to push him back under the Soldier's blankness again.

Steve was still talking, unaware of Bucky’s wandering attention. “They’ve tracked his path back to a HYDRA operative he apparently murdered—that’s where he got that book in the first place—but we’re still trying to figure out what he was going to order you to do. If there was anything he said…”

Bucky twitched.

He didn’t like remembering the way that man had talked right after all surveillance had been cut with the power, when Bucky immediately realized things weren’t quite right. He’d been going on his usual villain spiel, but he’d really wanted to know.

Before he began listing the code words—

He’d asked—

Bucky twitched a second time, more violently than the first.

This caught Steve’s attention. “Buck?”

“Not Stark,” Bucky managed after a good minute of getting himself under control. He wasn’t going to fall apart in front of Steve. He’d spent these last few years making desperately sure he wasn’t going to fall apart in front of Steve: searching for answers on his own; negotiating with his neighbors; figuring out how to use a fucking ATM machine without terrifying everyone in a hundred feet radius.

He clarified, “I’ll talk to everyone but Stark.”

“Tony?” Steve looked taken aback. “Buck, he’s just as much of an Avenger as the rest of the team is.”

“December 17,” Bucky said. “1991.”

Steve furrowed his brow. After a long moment, he said quietly, “A kill? But you…”

“I remember everyone I killed,” Bucky told him, and watched impassively as Steve’s face crumpled with so many drowned-cat feelings he was on the verge of melting into a meowing puddle. Hence why he’d been reluctant to tell him. “I remember who I killed that day. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to know about that mission so badly.”

He tilted his head back so he was looking up at the brightly lit ceiling. A beautiful piece of technology, of course, fit for Howard Stark’s legacy.

He didn’t look at Steve when he continued: “Not unless he wanted Tony Stark to kill me.”

He shifted the plates on the left arm once, twice, and found himself unable to stop. Not until Steve reached a trembling hand out and pressed it his rippling elbow, and Bucky had to stop or risk pinching Steve’s little finger off.

 

\--

 

(Bucky only remembered Howard and Maria sometimes. They’d given the kill order to him on purpose, he knew, to make sure he’d been wiped for good. And Bucky. Bucky had done it.

He’d honest to god put his hand around his old friend’s neck and twisted, feeling nothing at the sickening crack and Maria Stark’s screams echoing right beside him. Nothing at all.)

 

\--

 

The next morning went horribly.

“I’ll _kill you_ ,” Tony shouted over Ross and T’Challa and Natasha trying to stop him from causing an international incident. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Tony, for god’s sake—”

“You don’t get to say anything, Rogers,” the man spat, even when Natasha firmly shut the door in his face. “Not when you knew the whole time!”

“I think it’s best if we bunk in Brooklyn for a while,” Steve quietly her, “I’ve an old apartment there for—ah—sentimental reasons.”

Natasha cocked her head but didn’t protest. Then again, she’d spent the entire meeting so far keeping an eye on Bucky, which would have been unnerving if it wasn’t so smart. She’d always been one of his best students.

(When was Black Widow ever his _student_?)

“Brooklyn?” Ross echoed. Steve blinked, as if just remembering that hello, the Avengers were caught up in more red tape than ever. These goddamn Accords Bucky kept hearing about.

Steve straightened, “It _is_ allowed, isn’t it, sir? We aren’t under house arrest.”

“Given the… circumstances, it does seem unwise to force Mr. Stark and Mr. Barnes to share the same space,” King T’Challa of Wakanda agreed from the head of the table. He was young and rich and beautifully dark, in complete contrast to the raging billionaire outside. Bucky liked him immediately, though he would’ve liked him better if he hadn’t almost clawed his face off a few days ago. “Forgive me for overstepping, but I am not comfortable leaving you two on your own."

“I signed the Accords,” Steve said lowly, and looked surprised when T’Challa only nodded at him.

“Which I appreciate, Captain. But until you prove yourself capable of following them, the world will continue to see you as a flight risk. If I may be so bold…” he stood, “…I’d like to accompany you and Mr. Barnes to your new residence.”

“King T’Challa,” Ross seemed scandalized. “I can assure you we can provide you more suitable lodgings…”

“The place _is_ kind of a dump,” Steve told the king in a terse voice. “And I’m not exactly sure I’m buying your reasoning for standing guard over us.”

“I’m not planning to stand guard,” T’Challa corrected. “I’m—how do I put this.” He looked honestly conflicted for a moment, but not out-of-sorts. Only when his expression cleared did he continue, which showed impressive wisdom for a man his age. He even looked directly at Bucky, which a lot of people.

Didn’t do.

“My father was killed for the sole purpose of drawing you out. I sought to avenge his death by capturing you. But doing so led to your encounter with the real instrument of my father’s death, Zemo, in which you almost experienced unjust pain. I feel… responsible. I was unable to avenge my father’s death through Zemo’s capture. I hope to avenge him by righting whatever wrongs he made towards you…” and this time, he nodded at Steve, “…and perhaps halt any wrongs that he might have set in motion before his death.”

Ross seemed outraged at the confession, mouth opening and closing while he visibly tried to find some legal loophole that would keep the Wakandan King from just slipping out of the government’s hands. Unfortunately for him, Natasha seized the moment to speak up.

“If you’re sure,” Natasha put her hand on the king’s shoulder with care. Bucky gave her a questioning head tilt at the deliberate move, because Natasha usually only did that to achieve some greater goal. T’Challa was obviously not the kind of man easily swayed by seductive wiles, which could only mean Natasha did it because she _wanted to_.

Which was hilarious, if not alarming.

She continued, “Steve is a super-soldier with enhancements that put him on par with Mr. Barnes. But if the Winter Soldier snaps and you’re caught in the cross-fire…”

“I assure you, Wakandan royalty can handle ourselves,” T’Challa smiled, and there was something almost feral in his eye just then. “We are the country of Vibranium, after all.”

“King T’Challa—” Ross tried again.

“Unless you are implying the United States Government cannot trust even myself to keep an eye on the Avengers,” T’Challa added in a pleasant tone still sharp with warning. Ross snapped his mouth shut. When the general’s gaze happened to pass Bucky’s, Bucky shifted his arm-plates again and smirked when the man paled.

General Ross reluctantly excused himself after they passed a certain time, leaving the two Avengers, one king and a brainwashed assassin to talk without Big Brother watching. An awkward silence fell for so long that Bucky’s ass started to cramp from sitting in the same position. He shifted minutely.

Bucky kicked Steve's shin under the table and then tilted his head at the king.

Steve tilted his head back in a question. Bucky narrowed his eyes and upped the death glare by a hundred, and Steve finally relented.

“Alright,” he thrust his hand out at their acquaintance with his shoulders squared. T’Challa shook it firmly, dark eyes meeting Steve’s blue ones like gods making a new covenant. “But just so you know, you’ll have to find your own way there. We’re taking the bike.”

Bucky lit up. He might've tried destroying the damn thing several times when hyped up on HYDRA-brainwashing, but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate a beauty when he saw it.

(“I love this bike,” Bucky said, arms wrapped tightly around Steve’s waist. He wished Steve wasn’t wearing that god-awful motorcycle helmet so he could feel his hair, but the guy kept whining about policemen pulling him over and being a bad influence on children. Steve whined a lot. Bucky had refused point blank when Steve tried to wrestle his second helmet onto him, and was therefore free to press his nose into Steve’s leather jacket.

“What?” Steve shouted from inside the helmet.

“I love this bike.”

“You know I can’t hear you!”

“Fuck off, Steve!” Bucky said cheerfully, and felt more than heard Steve shake his head at him.)

 

\--

 

Steve, for all his bitching and moaning while sorting out the apartment and setting up the guest bedroom and cleaning up the god-awful mess in the back—“What the hell, did you slaughter a chicken here,” Bucky had said before hunting for bleach and a cloth—said nothing when he stepped into his bedroom and found Bucky unabashedly perched on his bed.

“I like this place better,” Bucky said when Steve just sighed at him. He wasn’t sure what he did to deserve this disappointed Steve-sigh, since he’d been acting impressively Bucky-like so far. No sudden bursts of pillow-stabbing or closet-hiding or crawling under beds even. Steve should be thrilled. He lay down on the covers and heard rather than saw Steve putter into his bathroom to brush his teeth. “Not that a whole Avengers Tower floor ain’t nice, but it’s just sad when most of the rooms are _empty_.”

“What am I going to do with a whole floor,” Steve called out. He emerged from the bathroom and crawled beside Bucky, easy as you please—on top of the covers, too, which was ridiculously considerate of him. When he came close enough for their shoulders to touch, however, Bucky’s metal arm twitched. Steve got the hint and stayed a hair’s breadth away. “I’m just one person. Never had much then. Don’t have much now.”

Bucky turned his head to blink at Steve.

This close, he could see how tired Steve’s eyes were. How much the world was tearing him down, because from Steve’s point of view he’d had his best guy accused of mass murder (for something he _hadn’t_ done, for once); his soul signed away to the US of A ( _again_ ); and his favorite girl Carter buried, all in the same week.

And Steve, that little punk, was holding it all in like any sign of weakness was gonna tear Bucky apart. Send him into stabbing, hiding, crawling mode like this was the first year he’d broken out of HYDRA’s control and not the third.

Bucky couldn’t decide if he was gratified or annoyed to find that Steve was just as much a noble little shit as memory served.

“Steve,” he said gruffly.

Steve, who had closed his eyes, just sighed. “Yeah, Buck?”

“Ask me.”

“What.”

“Ask me why I didn’t come back to you,” Bucky said lowly, keeping his voice as flat as possible.

Steve’s eyes snapped open at that. He opened his mouth like he was going to spew out some bullshit Captain America lie and then wisely closed it.

Finally: “I _looked_ for you.”

“I know.”

“ _We_ looked for you and I—we could have—Buck, I could have been there for you. You should have come home.”

Bucky wanted to be a smart-ass. Remind him that their old place in Brooklyn had long been torn down and reconstructed into a music shop. Their favorite bakery was now a busy intersection. The parks weren’t even in the right places anymore.

But he knew what Steve meant. _Home_ was at Steve’s side, because that’s where it’d always been. It was why he’d spent all his energy keeping that idiot alive during their Howling Commando days, because if Steve ever went down than Bucky was going right down with him.

(He tried not to think of how the opposite was true. He’d trashed an entire safe-house after he put two-and-two together and realized Steve had fucking sank that plane just days after Bucky had fallen off the train. Goddamn reckless _punk_. Like sinking himself into ice was somehow close enough to Bucky’s own icy end to count as _til death do us part.)_

“Would you,” and now Steve sounded alarmingly calm, the kind of voice he got when he was holding back tears, “Would you have come back if they hadn’t smoked you out?”

“No,” Bucky said.

Steve’s face crumpled before he was able to catch himself. Bucky waited patiently. Once Steve got himself under control again, enough to get mad, he whispered, “I would have dropped _everything_ for you, Buck. You wanted to go to Bucharest? I would’ve gone with you to Bucharest. I would’ve gone with you to fucking Russia if you’d wanted to!”

“And become a fugitive, is that it? A criminal by association?”

“You were brainwashed!”

“Still my hands,” Bucky let his plates shift in case Steve had lost his mind and forgot the deadly HYDRA weapon lying inches away from his vulnerable belly. “Still my gun. I wasn’t gonna put that choice on you, Stevie.”

“You think I wouldn’t choose you,” Steve argued back, tears welling up in those big baby blues. Some tiny, long-suppressed voice in his chest urged him to brush those tears away and swaddle Steve up in a blanket, because there was nothing that could get a sulking Steve Rogers to calm down like a good swaddling. Except _that_ Bucky wasn’t here anymore. Just this poor substitute of a Bucky, watching impassively as this beautiful man fell apart at the seams. “I would’ve given the Avengers up. My duty up. I would’ve given it _all_ up if it meant you safe again. Jesus Christ, Buck.”

Bucky said nothing for a long moment.

“I’m not worth all that,” he finally said. And it was true. Bucky might have memories so scrambled a chef would’ve just chucked it all into the bin and fried a new egg, but he never had a problem with who he was. He was a soldier. Then he was a tool. Now he was a soldier-tool who could only do his best to pay homage to the man whose memories were downloaded into his head.

“You are,” Steve whispered. He reached out with no hesitation and wrapped his fingers around Bucky’s flesh wrist. His hand was large and rough and warm. A far cry from Little Steve’s tentative, always chilly fingers. Bucky blinked but didn’t twist away.

When Steve seemed sure Bucky wasn’t about to flip out and throw a dozen knives into his stupid face, he sniffed and closed his eyes. Bucky waited for his breath to even out. In and out. In and out.

Then, he quietly slipped from Steve’s grasp and crawled under the bed.

 

\--

 

(This was what he was scared of. He loved Steve, but being near him meant more memories slipping back and sweeping him off his feet. Which meant more meltdowns and outbursts and Bucky had made himself a promise after he’d escaped.

He’d looked at his bloody hands after dragging the man to shore— _Steve’s_ blood, that was _Steve’s blood_ caught between his metal plates—and promised to never lose it so badly in front of Steve again.

Not just because he’d hurt him, physically and emotionally. But because he knew somewhere deep inside that Bucky—the original Bucky—would have rather cut out his heart than have Steve see him so out of control.)

 

\--

 

Steve, having somehow rediscovered his tact overnight, said nothing about Bucky’s new sleeping arrangements.

“I’m not going to make you any coffee if you don’t get up,” was all he said, standing back up from his crouch and leaving Bucky to drown in the dust bunnies under the bed.

This was why Stevie was his favorite. He knew when to just let Bucky _be_.

Unfortunately, having King T’Challa of Wakanda as a roommate in Steve’s quaint, three bedroom apartment had the opposite effect. Not that T’Challa was nosy or got into Bucky’s business or even tried pushing him into conversation like some of Steve's less intelligent Avenger friends. He just didn’t understand his habits like Steve did.

His entire presence made Bucky feel like he was acting like a fucking crazy person, which wasn’t helpful given that Bucky actually _was_ kind of a crazy person.

“Why is there sugar and canola oil on top of the bathroom cabinet?” T’Challa asked over the kitchen table after a few days, more out of curiosity than disapproval. Still, Bucky couldn’t help but suddenly become absorbed in sharpening his knife.

Steve let out an indignant noise, “That’s where the sugar went!”

“Sweet tooth,” Bucky muttered, flipping the knife neatly between flesh and metal fingers and then slipping it back into his inner pocket.

“It’s a rationing thing,” Steve told T’Challa. “Back during the war, we had limited supplies. Sugar was one. Oil was another. Buck got into the habit of putting the sugar on top of the bathroom cabinet so I couldn’t reach it,” and at this, he threw Bucky a sad puppy-eyed look.

Bucky crossed his arms. He'd actually just done it out of long-forgotten habit, but his annoyance and Steve's explanation stirred up the right memory. “’Cause if I didn’t, you’d eat up all the sugar in the house. Which _I_ don’t give a damn about,” he put up a hand before Steve could interrupt, “but _you_ ’ _d_ get all guilty and mope around ‘til the next ration. Drove me right up the wall.”

“It’s very interesting hearing you two speak of the past,” T’Challa said. Like most everything he did, the King was remarkably genuine. “I’ve read the stories, but it’s still hard to imagine you as a small man, Captain.”

“Join the club,” Bucky drawled, and Steve’s expression turned half-hurt, half-concerned. Which Bucky didn’t want to poke at with a ten-foot stick, and so he scurried out of the room, onto the fire escape, and then up to the roof.

But not before snatching the jar of sugar from the bathroom, because Bucky wasn’t above being petty.

Later, while Bucky was conducting a security check around the apartment and finding it hair-raisingly abysmal, Steve poked his head out of his bedroom window and called out, “Buck, there’s dinner on the counter.”

“Did you cook it,” Bucky asked around the knife held between his teeth. He was hanging upside and rewiring some of the old SHIELD (actually HYDRA, upon closer inspection) tracers that _someone_ had stuck all over the place. Thankfully, Bucky’s evil metal hand seemed to remember how to sabotage surveillance, and so Bucky just had to zone out and think about HYDRA agents storming in through the windows and _bam_. Tracers fixed.

“You know I can’t cook.”

“ _I_ know,” Bucky agreed. One of the first goddamn Steve-facts that'd knocked back into place, most likely out of self-preservation. He flipped onto the fire escape and squinted up at the invisible tracer. “But _you_ sometimes forget.”

“Well maybe I’ve learned to cook in this new future,” Steve said defiantly, and Bucky just turned and gave him an incredulous look. The blond man deflated. “No, Buck, I didn’t cook. I ordered out. Moroccan.”

“T’Challa’s from _Wakanda_. Not all of Africa’s the same, Stevie.”

“I _know that_ , I didn’t order for T’Challa!” Steve flailed, looking mortified. “I ordered because the Moroccan place down the street makes the most amazing food. Now _come on_."

“Totally ordered it for T’Cheetah,” Bucky muttered under his breath, and resolved to keep the sugar can hidden in the rafters for as long as possible.

Except Steve, being _Steve_ , had to circumvent him in the most infuriatingly simple way.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said sweetly when he found Bucky waiting for him in the kitchen with his arms crossed. The newly bought can of sugar sat innocently beside him. “I just saw it at the grocery and realized that wow! I _did_ have the two dollars I needed to buy it.”

“You _punk_ ,” Bucky hissed at him, and refused to budge over. Not even when Steve squeezed between him and the opposing counter. Steve, forgetting his infuriating resolve to treat Bucky like the most delicate snowflake to have ever been snowed, jabbed him under the ribs. Bucky kicked his shin. Steve grabbed his leg and tried to tickle his foot, but then Bucky rammed his heel into his face and grinned victoriously when Steve stumbled back.

“You goddamn _jerk_ ,” Steve moaned, like Bucky had killed his puppy or something. He wasn’t even bleeding, for god’s sake. “Brawling over sugar, Buck. _Sugar_.”

“Maybe if you used that money to get me my plums,” Bucky drawled, and then beat a hasty retreat before Steve could chuck a pan at him. Steve took out his frustration instead on the pots and pans soaking in the sink. Bucky found the clinging and clanging sounds soothing, which seemed strangely sadistic.

Or maybe they just reminded him that Steve was alive. That Bucky could close his eyes and just _know_ Steve was nearby—that he was here and breathing and healthy enough to get pissed.

That his Stevie—the one his brain sometimes insisted was gone or a hallucination or whatever—was _real_.

 

\--

 

Real enough he knew he couldn't stay forever.

 

\--

 

“Tell me about these Accords,” Bucky asked King T’Challa the second week of his stay. The man frowned at him from his desk.

“It is impolite to come into someone’s room without knocking first,” T’Challa said. He closed his laptop and turned to face Bucky straight on: calm and focused and with an air of power Bucky respected. See, one could be an influential rich man without being a _rude megalomaniac_.

(Bucky knew he wasn’t being fair to Stark. Just because he'd lost his shit when he found out Bucky killed his parents didn’t mean he wasn’t _good_. Lots of good people would have lost their shit. But Bucky was sick and tired of thinking of anyone beyond himself, the real Bucky’s dying wishes, and Steve. Interacting with other people was _so goddamn hard_.)

Bucky didn’t say anything. He didn’t even blink.

Finally, T’Challa just said: “The Accords were formed to monitor the Avenger’s missions across the Globe. A governmental entity that would oversee the group’s actions.”

“Like SHIELD,” Bucky said flatly, “who turned out to be _HYDRA_ and tried to take over the world.”

“The proposed council…”

“…can be HYDRA too. Cut off one head, and two more rise up in their place,” Bucky stood up from where he’d been perched on T’Challa’s suitcase. He adjusted the bag strapped across his front and said, “The Avengers save people on national television. The damage would have been worse without them. I would know.” He flexed his hand, his voice falling into the flat tone he’d used as the Soldier. Clear, sharp, concise. “What do politicians do? Do what they’ve always done. Shift blame. Sit on their asses. Don’t do _anything_ except grab control.”

“You are aware I am a King,” T’Challa said dryly. “Are you saying I am a politician who hasn’t done anything?”

“You’re not a politician first,” Bucky said.

“Thank you.”

“You’re a black kitty cat,” Bucky finished.

T’Challa just stared at him.

“Thank… you?” he said hesitantly, and the soldier gave him one of the real Bucky’s signature grins. Charming, self-assured, and with a dash of wicked humor. Then, taking advantage of T’Challa’s surprise at his sudden personality shift, he stalked to the guest window, shoved it open, and jumped right into a nearby tree. He crawled down its branches even as T’Challa poked his head out of the window in alarm.

“Sergeant Barnes!” the king called out, “Where are you going?”

Bucky dropped onto the soft grass below and gave the man a shrug.

“Siberia,” he answered—and then disappeared into the alleyway behind the apartment.

 

\--

 

Zemo had the red book. Very few people who had the red book didn’t know about the lab. The cryo-chambers. He’d asked Bucky about the dates, about the Winter _Soldiers_ , and Bucky wasn’t a world-class assassin for nothing.

Stevie’s hands were tied by those damn Accords, but Bucky’s weren’t.

He could do what had to be done.

 

\--

 

Still, he wasn't stupid. He'd known that Steve would freak the fuck out.

That's why he left while the kid was out running errands, to preemptively spare himself the shouting and the tears and the stiff, stubborn set of Steve’s jaw. He just hadn’t realized he'd freak out so much he’d send _Tony fucking Stark_ , ridiculous philanthropist with a murderous vendetta against one Sergeant James Barnes, to drag him home.

“There are _more of you_ ,” Iron Man had shouted when he blasted his way in instead of using the door like a normal person. Bucky, who was brooding before the computers, ignored him. “How the hell are there more soldiers!”

“Why else would HYDRA terminate Howard Stark,” Bucky said, unfazed when Iron Man jerked back and thrust a plasma cannon in his face. “Only way to get more of Steve’s serum.”

“Just ‘cause Steve made me promise not to blow you to pieces,” Stark breathed, “doesn’t mean you can just _mention_ _my dad’s name_.”

Bucky stood up. He looked at Iron Man floating before him, shaking with such obvious agitation it practically bled through that impenetrable armor; looked at the five soldiers he’d killed without batting an eye, because Bucky had trained with these weapons and knew they hadn’t anyone left to bring them back; and then looked down at the controls where he’d been agonizing for the last hour. Controls that would show him video recordings of his kills. That would show him Howard’s and Maria’s deaths.

He knew they were there. They’d show him clips whenever what was left of Bucky scrabbled too close to the surface and they refused to give him the easy way out. They’d make him watch his hands snapping their necks over and over and _over_ , until Bucky couldn’t take it anymore and sank back into oblivion.

(Because he was _weak_. Bucky Barnes had once prided himself in being Steve’s cornerstone, someone strong to lean upon, but a dozen torturing sessions later and he’d _broken_.

Sergeant James Barnes died that day in that laboratory. Not because HYDRA had burned him away, but because the Winter Soldier would rather pretend Bucky died a hero than accept that he had turned traitor. That he’d betrayed the country he had once sworn to protect. Betrayed _Steve_.

Just thinking about it made Bucky want to crawl under the floorboards and scream, except he couldn’t. Steve needed him to be strong, and for once Bucky was going to do his goddamn best to pretend he was.)

Bucky raised his great metal arm—the fist of HYDRA, Alexander Pierce's voice whispered in his ear—and slammed it into the controls. Panels ripped open in a shower of sparks. Monitors shattered, screeched, sank into a heap of tiny wires as Bucky slammed his hand down over and over again. He reached in through the shattered shell and grabbed hefty cords with the _fist of HYDRA._ He tore them apart, threw their remains down onto the floor, and kept pummeling the insides with the same ferocity.

When he looked up, the Iron Man had taken quite a few steps back. He’d even deactivated his plasma cannons.

“Okay, wow,” Stark sounded much less angry and much more bewildered. “…not really expecting that. Should have left some for me, though. I’ve got anger to work through too.”

Bucky stepped back from the mess and swept his hand in a _go ahead_ gesture.

Stark stared at the sparking pile of electronics. Stared at Bucky. He then lifted up the Iron Man mask so Bucky could see his face.

“Just so you know,” he pointed a finger at him. “This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”

Then he snapped his mask in place, readied his plasma cannons, and blew the fucking controls to kingdom come.

 

\--

 

“Stark,” Bucky had said from where the Iron Man had strapped him in the back seat of the helicopter. He’d even had that awful containment box prepared in the storage compartment, but letting Stark pulverize the rest of the HYDRA base seemed to put him in a good enough mood to let Bucky sit in the cockpit.

Not enough to spare him the handcuffs, though.

“I said you’re not off the hook,” Stark hissed at him when Bucky gave up calling his name in favor of kicking the back of the guy’s seat. “Like yeah, I know you’re like Steve’s murderous cyborg boyfriend but you _killed my parents_.”

“Steve,” Bucky repeated, sitting back like he hadn’t just acted like a five year old on a road trip. “If he ever does anything stupid and self-sacrificing…”

“And by ever you mean _every day_ ,” Stark said.

“…sock him one for me,” Bucky finished.

Stark actually seemed startled, like he’d expected their relationship to be entirely made of tears and feelings and cuddles. To which Bucky would’ve asked if he’d _met_ Steve, ‘cause punching his head in was sometimes the only way to get anything through his thick skull.

“That’s domestic abuse,” Stark declared off-hand, but didn’t say no. The man did actually have a brain under all that snark, after all.

 

\--

 

They locked him up in a room again. Not a surprise. Bucky had always known he’d end up back here eventually, and it might as well be now.

“Trespassing international borders without authorization,” General Ross recited, almost like he was relishing the moment. “Destruction of vital enemy intelligence and weaponry. Five murders of augmented humans, some of which were MIA United States military units.”

He stopped in front of Bucky, chin raised high in the most imposing way possible. Bucky just gave him an impassive stare back.

“Did it occur to you that the US Military could have used that data from those HYDRA archives to ascertain valuable intel?” Ross slammed his hand onto the table. “That we could have interrogated the other victims—victims like _you_ —or possibly have saved them?”

Bucky said nothing. He hadn’t moved since Ross had shoved him in here, and he wasn’t about to move now. Not even to inform the man that Stark had destroyed more machinery than he did, because what was the point.

He’d realized on the helicopter ride back that Steve had sent Tony Stark not because he’d been passive-aggressively getting back at Bucky for leaving. He’d sent Stark because he was the Sokovia Accords’ golden boy.

The one coziest to the government, who'd be easily forgiven for trespassing international lines to drag back a homicidal assassin. The one who could keep Steve out of trouble when Bucky was gone—keep the government off his back, for one, and keep Steve from his more reckless stunts with the rest of the Avengers.

“You don’t have anything to say for yourself?” Ross sat back. “Not when the good captain took so much effort to clear your name?”

The imposter Bucky, who might have gotten used to pretending to be the real Bucky after so long, was at the core of it still a soldier-tool. A living weapon. He was the Winter Soldier, and bringing that calculating blankness back was unnervingly easy.

“Enjoy that seat while you can,” Ross said, standing up after the Soldier refused to respond for fifteen minutes. “’Cause you won’t be getting amenities like this on the Raft.”

He strolled out the room. The Soldier stared ahead.

He could have killed that man in more than fifty ways with just his thumb. The Enemy had been shockingly foolish not to restrain him before interrogation. Confidence or incompetence? Confidence, most likely, because the Enemy knew the Soldier would not risk harming the Mission. If the Soldier misbehaved, the Mission would get punished.

The Mission could not get punished.

_Steve_ couldn’t get punished.

And then Bucky gasped awake, because he remembered how much he fucking _hated_ being the Soldier. He hated it, _hated it_ , and with Ross gone, he was free to slip out of the chair and slump onto the floor. Put his hands behind his head and breathe.

He might only be a soldier-tool pretending to be Bucky Barnes, but he liked being Bucky Barnes. It made him feel real. Except he’d gotten soft if he couldn't bring the Soldier back for more than an hour. Couldn't wear that stone-cold killer for the decades he once had.

Bucky breathed in and then breathed out. In and out. Nothing had changed. If it helped Steve for the government to lock Bucky up in some ridiculous, underwater superhuman prison, than so be it. If his imprisonment could help Steve’s standing with these Accords, than so be it.

He let himself breathe like that for exactly five minutes, and then climbed off the floor and into the chair.

He sat in it like he’d never left. Show no weakness, soldier. Hold your head up high.

 

\--

 

He'd expected General Ross to barge into the room with an army of guards and the superhuman-proof handcuffs all ready to go. He didn't expect Steve to open the door and walk in instead.

Steve looking like he’d been pulling an all-nighter before being called to a business meeting; all fly-away blond hair and dark circles under his eyes. Nice clothes, though, and from the way his bangs were combed back he’d at least tried.

That's all he got before Steve punched him in the face.

“You _bastard_ ,” he shouted, voice already beginning to tear up. “You goddamn jerk! Come home and you’re gone without a single word to me. Coulda been taken, HYDRA locked you up in a bunker somewhere—“

“Steve,” Bucky clutched his swelling cheek with honest shock. This was not how he’d expected Steve to react upon Bucky’s imminent imprisonment.

“—and then you’re in Siberia, of all places. Without me!”

Bucky opened his mouth and said, “They would have arrested you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well _I_ do,” Bucky said sharply. “I was gonna end up here anyway, Stevie. Taking all the Winter Soldiers down with me was the least I could do, but I wasn’t gonna take you too.”

Steve looked a second away from going on another rant when the interrogation room door opened. King T’Challa of Wakanda, dressed as sharply as the royalty he was, walked in with an indignant General Ross hurrying after him.

“Sergeant Barnes,” the King acknowledged.

“Kitty cat,” Bucky replied, ignoring Steve who had turned to gape at him.

“This is an incredibly unwise course of action,” General Ross was saying tersely. “He has demonstrated himself to be violent, dangerous and…”

“Like I said, General,” the other man overrode him. “I take full responsibility for what happened here.” He gestured at Bucky, who had gone completely still. “Sergeant Barnes approached me with valuable, time-sensitive intel. It was I that took initiative and approved his mission without the others’ permission.” He held his hand up when General Ross opened his mouth to speak. “Including the lab’s destruction.”

“The intel,” Ross sputtered, “The _soldiers_ —”

“As detailed here in print,” T’Challa said, pulling a briefcase out of _nowhere_ and handing the bewildered General a stack of papers from inside it. “After identifying the Warehouse as D-21, Miss Romanov has confirmed that all important files were released in the SHIELD leak. As for the other Winter Soldiers, I have read these files. The damage they sustained was irrecoverable. I believe Sergeant Barnes did them a great service by putting them out of their misery.”

Ross gaped at the man, speechless.

“The Sergeant was operating under my go-ahead,” T’Challa continued, voice completely unwavering. “As only fair, whatever punishment you intended for him, I will accept in his steed.”

Ross shut his mouth. He flipped through the papers with stiff, angry movements, because he was cornered. No one except Steve would've given a damn if Bucky had been locked up at sea, but there was no way in hell the Americans could pull the same shit with the _King of Wakanda_.

Bucky wasn’t even sure how T’Challa had pulled all this out of his ass—or _why_ —but he didn't care. Not if it lit Steve up with his Captainly, American passion.

“I'll need to consult with the higher-ups,” Ross finally said through gritted teeth. He glowered at Bucky first, and then Steve, as if Bucky hadn’t already realized the real reason he’d been pushing so hard for Bucky’s arrest.

Steve’s original position against the Accords had unsettled the community. You'd think the government would've known better than to try and put the little punk "in his place."

The General stormed out of the room, followed shortly after by T’Challa, who gave both Steve and Bucky an acknowledging nod. Bucky barely had time to begin processing when he found his ribcage being squeezed to death.

“Don’t do that again, you jerk,” Stevie mumbled into his hair. Bucky felt a strange shiver go through him.

It brought back splintered memories of him huddled in a bedroll, Steve at his side— _Steve_ , healthy and huge and just impossibly there—with the other man scolding him in his sleep. His nightmares had been filled with fire and syringes and men peeling their faces off. Steve had said: _Don’t scare me like that again._

_I won't_ , Bucky had promised, and had meant it down to his warm, human soul.

Except he'd then gone careening to his death, proving once and for all he was destined to keep breaking Steve’s heart.

 

\--

 

The military begrudgingly released Bucky into the hands of a slightly less homicidal—but still furious, given the glaring and snarky jabs—Tony Stark. Because he might’ve escaped a lifetime’s imprisonment in an underwater submarine, but Big Brother still wanted him kept under strict observation.

(That ruled out Steve’s little apartment, which upset Bucky far more than he’d expected. It was only with a minor loss in dignity that Steve had to approach Tony again about Avengers Tower.)

So they were right back where they started: Bucky parked out in Steve’s disgustingly plain and lonely bedroom, because after staying in Brooklyn, Bucky had surmised that Steve had never planned to live in the Tower for long. He was only slightly mollified when Steve returned from his trip to the apartment—Bucky was under house arrest for a month—with some of the knick-knacks Bucky had begun to hoard in Brooklyn.

He also brought back a bag of plums.

“You told me to get them!” Steve shook the bag when Bucky had just frowned at him. “During that whole sugar thing!”

“I hate plums.”

“ _I know that_ ,” Steve threw the plums onto the enormous kitchen counter like they had personally offended them. Bucky—who had spent his time either annoying the hell out of Stark’s AI or annoying the hell out of _Stark_ as payback for the guy sticking _magnets all over Steve’s door—_ just crossed his arms.

“Is this a bad time?” T’Challa's voice suddenly called out from the doorway. Steve jumped in mortification at being caught squabbling over plums, like the King hadn’t seen them get into worse fights at the apartment. Bucky ignored Steve’s internal flailing to glare at the ceiling. FRIDAY’s conspicuous silence just  _screamed_ Stark’s passive-aggressive douchery.

And this was how they ended up with King of Wakanda appraising Bucky at the kitchen table.

“You did the right thing, Sergeant,” T’Challa informed him, and Bucky just gave him an incredulous look.

“You don’t strike me as the type to lie, your highness,” he muttered, still bewildered that this man had came to his defense. _Him_ , Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, traitor and assassin and all-around prickly guy, who wasn't worth anyone putting their reputation on the line for.

“I am the not the type to watch a good man punished for a political point either,” T’Challa corrected him. “I believe in the spirit of the law, not the letter. And I… understand your reasoning for taking matters into your own hands."

“T’Challa, I can’t thank you enough,” Steve clasped the man’s hand earnestly, because Bucky sure as hell wasn’t going to. T’Challa graced the blond man with a smile and a small bow.

“I have already alerted Mr. Stark and the American Government about my departure tomorrow,” he said. “As I stayed in the states to make sure my guilt towards the Sergeant has been appeased. With that cleared, Wakanda needs me.”

“Of course,” Steve said. “I can’t imagine—I apologize, for us keeping you here for so long.”

“No apologies, Captain,” the man stood up and straightened his jacket. “I simply did what needed to be done.”

 

\--

 

“He’s gonna be back,” Bucky informed Steve while the man puttered about disposing the now thoroughly bruised plums.

“You turn psychic now, Buck, or you gotta real reason?” Steve tossed the sticky mess into the trash disposal and washed his hands. “Should I be jealous?”

“He _is_ quite a looker,” Bucky drawled, and gave Steve a lazy grin when the man frowned at him. “And I'm still a catch. Dark, tall and handsome…”

“Real humble too,” Steve snorted.

“Cybernetic arms are all the rage these days. I can crush a man’s heart without breaking a sweat.”

“Surely a trait everyone's looking for,” Steve wiped his hands on a clean rag and strolled over to where Bucky was sitting in his chair.

Bucky knew what was going to happen seconds before it did. He was ready for it.

It was different, because it had been _years_ since they’ve seen each other. Decades since Steve had actually seen anything resembling his Bucky.

But it was the same too, in all the ways that mattered.

Steve just slipping into his lap like he was nineteen-fucking-years-old and tiny again, winding a warm arm around Bucky’s shoulder and leaning his weight onto his side. A move that would have crushed Sergeant James Barnes, but one perk of being tortured by HYDRA was that the Soldier could now hold Steve like he used to.

(Before everything.)

“I dunno, Steve,” he whispered into the blond’s ear, voice dipping in a way he’d thought he’d forgotten how to do. His skin _buzzed_. “Keep telling everyone I’m your best man but you ain’t putting out. Rips right into a guy’s heart, it does.”

Steve let out an indignant noise. “You wouldn’t even let me _touch_ you.”

“Two weeks sleeping in the same bed—”

“Half of which you spent _under_ the bed—”

“And there I was fixing the house, being responsible—”

“Putting the sugar in the bathroom like a _crazy person_ —”

“And it’s been decades, Stevie,” Bucky gave him a shit-eating grin that felt so achingly natural on his face. Steve shoved his head away with a scowl but didn’t dislodge himself from Bucky’s lap. That felt natural too. “ _Years_ after you knocked the sense into me. Surprised you didn’t jump me the moment you knew I was staying.”

And then Steve broke their game by giving him a sharp, devastated look. Bucky’s grin dropped off of his face. He sat still as the other man put his chin onto Bucky’s head and said, quietly, “Didn’t ever know if you were staying, Buck."

Bucky frowned.

“And I was right, wasn’t I?” Steve pulled back to give him a tight-lipped Steven Grant Rogers glare. “You ran off. Broke my heart, you did.”

“And I’ll just keep breaking it,” Bucky told him, deadly serious. He had to admit it upfront, because that’s how he and Steve promised to operate after the umpteenth time Steve's secrets almost got him killed. They'd set all the ugly truths on the table and face ‘em together. “’Cause I’m a grade-A jerk and you’re some demanding little punk and you’re worlds too good for me. My head’s _scrambled_ , Stevie, and look at the trouble you’re already getting into ‘cause of me.”

“That’s my best man you’re insulting,” Steve told him. “Better watch your mouth before I sock you one.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I,” Steve said, and wound his arms completely around Bucky’s shoulders. Pressed his face into his dark hair and started to shake, like Bucky had no fucking idea what Steve looked like when he was crying. Feeling hesitant, he wound his left arm—the cold metal one, because why the hell not—around this stubborn man’s waist. Breathed around the sudden catch in his own throat, because he’d promised to be strong. Promised Steve as a kid he’d hold him up when he got knocked down, else the punk just keep running himself into the grave.

“Jesus, Buck, I missed you,” Steve whispered between sobs. And he was crying the way he used to at home, where no one but Bucky could see him. Full-on hiccuping sobs, his whole face red and scrunched up and just ridiculously unflattering. He was dripping snot and spit all over Bucky’s hair, the little punk, not that Bucky cared enough about his hair to move away.

Just sat there and took Steve’s ridiculous emoting, his sheer _relief_ and _devastation,_ because when that boy cried, he _cried_. Cried enough for the both of them.

Finally, when Steve had stopped crushing him like a vice and his sobs had quieted, Bucky promised him in a soft voice: “I’m not the real Bucky, Steve. But I can try to be him, for you.”

He half expected Steve to argue with him, to convince him of his autonomy and self-acceptance and whatever the hell he’d read up online regarding soldiers with "PTSD."

(Just because Bucky struggled half the time to function like a reasonable adult didn’t mean he was _stupid_. Computers weren’t his forte, but even he knew how to use the Google.)

But Steve. His clever, stubborn Steve, who’d been unafraid to die if it meant Bucky clawing his way back—ignoring that fact that Bucky would’ve ate a bullet if he gasped awake just to find Stevie dead at his feet—Steve knew what he meant. Knew what he was promising, and how much it meant for Bucky to say it.

“Love you too, Buck,” he whispered hoarsely against Bucky’s cheek.

Bucky, who couldn't find words if his life depended on it, let the man slump forward against his shoulder. Let him close his eyes and doze off, because only Steve would find the embrace of a brainwashed HYDRA assassin _comforting_.

When he was sure Steve was completely and utterly asleep, he lugged the big goof back to his bedroom. Set him gently under the covers and then shut the door.

Bucky lay down beside him and watched golden lashes flutter with dreams, close enough he felt Steve’s breath on his face. Watched until his own eyes fluttered closed, like sleep could wipe away the own wetness in his eyes. Like sleep wasn't hellbent on leaving him exposed. Vulnerable.

Taking a deep breath, he relaxed his mind and welcomed it.

 

\--

 

“You never did answer me,” Steve pointed out the first day Bucky had finally, _finally_ been allowed to step outside the Tower.

He celebrated by dragging Steve into a local coffee shop and forcing him to try the Latte Macchiatos. Only the future could offer fancy-ass coffee like this. Steve had made a predictably sour face upon his first sip— _sweet tooth—_ and had given Bucky puppy-eyes until he grudgingly asked the Barista to add caramel syrup to Steve’s cup. Lots and lots of caramel syrup.

“Gotta be more specific,” Bucky said, taking another soothing sip of creamy coffee while curled up in his chair. Steve obviously disapproved of his horrible manners, but Steve hadn’t been forced to start making friends with FRIDAY the evil AI out of sheer boredom. Like really, Bucky had stooped low enough to start _talking to the walls._

“T’Challa,” Steve said. “Tony says he’s flying into New York tomorrow.”

“Called it,” Bucky said, pleased.

“Yes, but _why_. Unless you were serious about him and you, in which case we’ll need to talk.”

Bucky gave him an unimpressed look. “You’re thinking of the wrong Russian assassin here.”

Steve furrowed his brow, because despite being a whiz out on the field and cleverer than most Avengers by half, he was god-awful at sorting through romantic entanglements. Bucky took another gulp of coffee while he waited. Ate his funny little bagel-things, filled with cream cheese rather than having it smeared on top.

The future, ladies and gentlemen.

“ _Natasha_ ,” Steve finally yelped, getting with the program. “You think him and—but that’s not—what about Bruce?”

“Who’s Bruce.”

“The _Hulk_ , the—"

Bucky put up a hand. "Wait, I don't care. T'Challa's rich. Handsome. A good man. Natalia really likes him.”

“Bruce is a good man too,” Steve insisted, like he was obligated to defend his former teammate out of loyalty or something. Bucky ate his last bagel-thing and wiped his mouth. He then reveled in being able to throw his napkin into a trash can that couldn't talk back to him.

“The kitty cat’s coming back tomorrow,” Bucky said conversationally when he returned. Steve was still working on his caramel monstrosity, so he curled back up in his his chair. “Twenty-five dollars he’s gonna ask Natalia out for dinner.”

“Well _I_ think T’Challa’s a gentleman enough not to press Natasha before she’s ready,” Steve declared. “And you don’t have twenty five dollars.”

“Of course I do,” Bucky said, taking a stack of twenties from his pocket and waving it at his gaping friend. “Stole it from Stark.”

“Buck!”

“ _Magnets on the door_ ,” Bucky insisted, and Steve just threw his hands up in the air.

 

\--

 

(Bucky won the bet, like he knew he would. Didn’t end up getting his twenty-five dollars, but Steve more than made it up to him from behind closed doors.

Days like that, he felt more like Bucky Barnes than he had in forever. More like himself than he had in forever. As long as Steve kept smiling at him brilliantly, he'd keep trying to bring _Bucky_   to the forefront.

Not that he wasn't aware that one day he might have to hide away again, because that wasn't the only red book out there and HYDRA had a vendetta. But Bucky could be selfish, too. He'd keep getting Stevie to smile like that, every day he could.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> And eventually Bucky will have to actually wander off Steve's floor and talk to the other Avengers, which he's avoided doing because _Tony Stark_. The guy kept upping surveillance the more Bucky kept dismantling it and _wouldn't stop it with the magnets, Jesus Christ Stevie get him to LAY OFF_


End file.
